Why Valletta needs a local guide
Valletta was built in four years by the Knights of St. John after they survived the Ottoman siege of 1565. Every street runs on a grid from the fortress walls to the harbor. The Co-Cathedral of St. John has a Caravaggio that most people don't know exists. The Grand Harbour held the British Mediterranean fleet for 150 years.
Malta receives around 3 million tourists a year on an island smaller than most European cities. Valletta, the capital, is just 1km long and 600 meters wide, yet it packs in 320 monuments. Most visitors walk Republic Street from the City Gate to Fort St. Elmo, peek into the Co-Cathedral of St. John where a Caravaggio hangs in a side chapel, and take a photo at the Upper Barrakka Gardens when the noon cannon fires. They leave without turning onto Strait Street, the former bar strip for British sailors that is coming back to life with wine bars and tiny restaurants. They never learn that Valletta was built in four years flat by the Knights of St. John as a fortress city after surviving the Ottoman siege of 1565, and that the grid plan was designed so cannon fire could sweep every street. To become a tour guide in Valletta is to work in the smallest capital in the EU and still find things that surprise people. You take visitors to the Manoel Theatre, one of the oldest working theatres in Europe, and to the fortification ditches where the city's military engineering becomes clear. If you want to become a tour guide in Valletta, you need to know your pastizzi spots and your Caravaggio equally well. Becoming a tour guide in Valletta means explaining 400 years of military history, Maltese language, and why a 50-cent ricotta pastry is the best thing on the island, all within walking distance.